“France [on Tuesday] reported a probable Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) case in a person who recently traveled to Saudi Arabia, while the [WHO] offered new details on a MERS case reported in Qatar [on Monday],” CIDRAP News reports. “The patient in France is a 43-year-old who recently returned from Saudi Arabia, the French health ministry said in a statement, but it did not specify whether the patient attended the Hajj pilgrimage in mid-October,” the news service writes, noting, “If the case is confirmed, it will be the third MERS case in France.” The news service adds, “Meanwhile, the WHO confirmed Qatar’s seventh MERS case,” noting, “The agency said the patient, a 23-year-old man, works in an animal barn owned by Qatar’s last previous case-patient” (10/29). In related news, “Oman has reported its first case of the deadly MERS coronavirus, local newspapers said on Wednesday, the fourth Gulf Arab country where the strain has been found since it emerged in Saudi Arabia last year,” according to Reuters. “Omani newspapers quoted Health Affairs Undersecretary Mohamed bin Saif al Hosni as saying that the patient was admitted to a hospital in Nizwa, an oasis town south-west of Muscat, suffering from a chest infection,” the news service writes (Aboudi, 10/30).